Thousands of Maltese people have signed a petition calling for a reference to Christianity to be inserted in the preamble of the EU Constitution.
The organisers of the petition, who are laymen, were yesterday collecting signatures at City Gate, in Valletta. Similar petitions are circulating in Europe.
The petition urges EU leaders to include a reference to God: "Reference to God reminds man of his limitations and that his power over life and nations is not absolute. Invoking God in the Preamble of the Constitution would hence ensure that peoples, be they Christians, Muslims or Jews, are free to invoke God. This recognition would ensure the true freedom of the human person as well as the guarantee of that freedom."
Mary Camilleri, one of the organisers, said thousands of signatures had been collected so far. "We are planning to intensify our public activities in the coming days in order to collect as many as possible," she said.
She said signatures for similar petitions were being collected across Europe. "This is a universal initiative. Christians in Europe are collecting signatures urging the EU leaders to reconsider their position on this issue."
Ms Camilleri said the petition will be presented to the EU leaders at the intergovernmental conference meeting to be held early next month in Rome. Prime Minister Eddie Fenech Adami will attend the conference, which will decide on the constitutional treaty.
"While congratulating all those responsible for the remarkable improvement of the text of the preamble making an inclusive reference to the religious heritage of the European identity and civilisation, the explicit absence of reference to Christianity is deplorable," says the petition.
It concludes that reference to the above factors will ensure that European citizens will be able to identify with the values of the EU, "transcend their divisions and forge a common destiny".
Another call for a reference to Christianity in the preamble of the constitution has come from the presidency of the Commission of the Bishops' Conferences of the European Community (COMECE).
The commission is made up of bishops, including the Maltese, delegated by the Catholic Bishops' Conferences of the European Union.
In a letter to the President of the European Council, Silvio Berlusconi, on the eve of the inter-governmental conference, COMECE'S president and two vice-presidents welcomed the achievement of the European Convention that drafted the proposed constitutional treaty, which they describe as "a successful innovation in the European democratic process".
Bishop Josef Homeyer (Hildesheim, Germany), Bishop Adrianus van Luyn (Rotterdam, Netherlands) and Archbishop Hippolyte Simon (Clermont, France) also welcome the proposed references to "Europe's religious inheritance and values, to the protection of religious freedom and to the identity and specific contribution of Churches and religious communities".
This represents, in their view, "significant progress in the way in which religion is taken into account in the European Union's constitutional architecture".
However, they argue that a reference to Christianity would complete the constitution "by giving concrete expression to what many citizens recognise as the source of the values on which the European project is founded".
"Given that Christianity's contribution to European civilisation is undeniable, omitting such a reference would be difficult to understand for many citizens in Europe, whether or not they believe in the Transcendent," they conclude.